


Gratitude

by luna_plath



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Chaptered, Cunnilingus, Double Agents, Emperor Kylo Ren, F/M, First Time, Force Bond (Star Wars), Grinding, Power Dynamics, Prompt Fic, Romance, Sex, Sexual Tension, Star Wars: The Last Jedi Spoilers, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-02-16 17:44:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13058976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luna_plath/pseuds/luna_plath
Summary: When Kylo finds her, she’s injured and exhausted and alone. The temperature on Crait has dropped considerably and Rey is visibly shivering in her torn robes, with salt from the planet’s surface embedded in her wounds from the ship’s crash.Rey crashes the Falcon on Crait. Kylo finds her.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shelbylynmarie](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=shelbylynmarie).



She runs from them for a full day cycle.

A full contingent of Stormtroopers is wiped out near the Falcon’s crash site, an impressive feat considering Rey alone had fought them off while the last of the Resistance commandeered a shuttle. She bought her friends time to escape, the few of them that were left.

Without a lightsaber, she doesn’t pose a true threat to the First Order, but she can run, and hide, and be a thorn in his side for hours while the rest of her friends get away safely. Her heart constricts every time she fires her stolen blaster at one of the uniformed ‘troopers, thinking of Finn and wondering how many others are just like he was, compelled to serve in this war. 

When Kylo finds her, she’s injured and exhausted and alone. The temperature on Crait has dropped considerably and Rey is visibly shivering in her torn robes, with salt from the planet’s surface embedded in her wounds from the ship’s crash. She sees a single black figure approach her over the salt flats and Rey scrambles to the top of a ridge of boulders, cornered, like an animal in a snare.

Kylo doesn’t speak when he finds her. He holds out his gloved hand for several moments, waiting to help her down from the unsteady mass of bounders she’s perched on. Rey finally takes it, her pride in her throat.

“You’re not angry,” she says, wondering how he’s still in control of himself when this whole day has amounted to nothing but a military humiliation. The Kylo Ren she knows is an angry man, prone to rage and reckless destruction. The Kylo Ren she knows isn’t supposed to look at her like she tore a wound in his heart, like she’s the one who caused the flaming wreckage that dots Crait's surface.

When the pair of them near the officer’s shuttle that gunned down the Falcon Rey feels bile rise in her throat, like the nasty retching that she always had to choke down after taking a sip of knockback nectar on Jakku.

“Is this it, then? Are you too much of a coward to even speak to me before you throw me in a cell?”

“Who said anything about throwing you in a cell,” Kylo replies, adopting that same mocking edge to his voice that reminds her, strangely, of Han.

“You can’t force me to—to rule beside you—”

“This will go much easier for you if you don’t fight me and don’t speak.”

His black eyes meet hers, then, hard like the dark volcanic glass that washed up on the shores of Ach-To. 

As the doors are opening to the shuttle, he whispers, through their minds so only she can hear, _trust me this once and you may live._

Rey bites down on her cheek, uses the pain to remind herself to keep her mouth closed. There are officers with different insignias and medals decorating their chests, their lapels, bits of metal displayed like the bright plumes of male birds. Kylo’s hand encircles her bicep, warm even through her layers of clothing, but gentle, as if he cares more for the appearance of her being hauled in to meet justice and not for the act itself.

“ _You_ ,” curses a man with ginger hair and cutting blue eyes. “Take her away! This girl must answer for her crimes! No one who defies the First Order can be permitted to draw another breath,” he shouts, incensed. 

No one moves an inch, the officers and ‘troopers waiting for Kylo’s orders.

“Collect our ground forces and disembark. Set course for the fleet convening on Corellia,” Kylo instructs.

“Yes, sir.”

The generals issue commands to their lower officers, all except the red-haired one, who looks as if he’s been personally affronted. 

Rey keeps her eyes down and allows Kylo to lead her out of the command center by the arm, appearing to the crew as if she’s been chastised, as if the fugitive Jedi Rey has been neutralized by the new Supreme Leader.

As soon as they are in the privacy of an empty chamber, Kylo presses her back to the closed durasteel door, his body crowded over hers like a wolf that’s guarding its territory. 

Her mouth twists into a frown as Rey looks up at him, unfazed. 

They both feel the jerk of the ship beneath their feet as it makes the jump to hyperspace. 

Kylo steps away from her and opens a metal panel in the wall, revealing a pitcher of water and a glass, along with a fully prepared meal. He places the fare on the table and pulls out a chair for her.

“Sit.”

Cautiously, Rey complies, taking a long pull from the glass of cool water while he watches her. He does nothing to conceal the hunger on his features while he observes her, while he watches Rey tear into a piece of fresh bread with her teeth. Once she’s eaten all the bread and all the cuts of seared meat and all the slices of fragrant red fruit, Rey wipes her mouth on the back of her hand and drinks another glass of water. 

“You’re never going back to the Resistance,” Kylo says, the first words either of them have spoken in some time. “That is the one thing I will never allow you to have.”

He leans toward her, his brown eyes gleaming, “But I will give you anything else you ask for. Whatever you want, say it and its yours.”

Rey gapes at him, unsure of the world around her, incapable of making sense of what she has just heard.

“Don’t ask yet,” he cautions. “Think about it.”

Kylo stands up and leaves. Rey listens for the sound of the door locking behind him, but it doesn’t come. She is alone at the table with the debris of her feast, not in a cell, not a prisoner, not being prepared for execution. She looks out the window and sees the rush of hyperspace, like stars shooting in her childhood dreams.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note the change in rating to T. 
> 
> You can find me at [lunaplath](http://lunaplath.tumblr.com) on Tumblr. Hit "subscribe" to get emails about future updates to this fic. If you would like to see a certain development in this story, mention it in a comment and I'll try to incorporate it.

Rey is with the First Order for three days before she utters a single word. Kylo is busy, but not too busy to notice. He watches her with a closed-off expression, like he’s developing a strategy to deal with her the same way his armies are dealing with the most important systems of the galaxy. 

Despite the disappointing performance on Crait, the First Order falls into line behind Kylo with little fuss. Rey finds herself in Kylo’s quarters on the _Supremacy_ , realizing for the first time that this is where she had seen him when he—when he’d been undressed. He’d been getting ready for bed, not planning on manipulating her through the force.

Rey feels her eyes swell with tears whenever she thinks about the hand he’d offered her. The Ben Solo she’d discovered through their bond was real, but so was Kylo Ren, and she could no more easily take one without the other than split her own soul in two. 

As a child, she had never let herself cry over her loneliness or her empty stomach or her broken bones. There wasn’t enough water on her home planet for her to be wasteful. But on this ship, there’s enough water to fill an ocean, so Rey lets herself open up her heart and cry. She lets herself be weak. 

Her eyes get puffy and sore and her head aches from all the crying. Rey buries her face in the blanket on Kylo’s bed and is overwhelmed with the scent of him. A clean scent, with a hint of ozone and smoke from his lightsaber. 

For so long she’d felt painfully, horribly alone. But now she realizes that, like the tree on Ach-To, she’s been here before. She’s been in this bed, surrounded by the essence of Kylo Ren.

He’d been with her the whole time, waiting in her dreams. 

*

When Kylo returns to his rooms, he finds Rey asleep in his bed, like his visions of her through the force, vivid but incongruent with everything around her.

It’s been three days since he hauled her onto his ship and took off into hyperspace, and in that time they’ve seen one another but hardly spoken. His chest feels hollowed out, aching for the heart and bone and blood that should be there. Taking off his gloves, Kylo brushes a strand of hair away from Rey’s face as she blinks open her eyes, leaves his fingers against her brow just so. Her skin is hot and dewy-soft beneath his bare hands. 

Her eyes have flecks of green and gold around the iris, like the details of her face have been painted by hand. Kylo kicks off his boots and lies down beside her, daring her to stop him.

Stretched out on his side, he holds his hand up to hers, their palms a few centimeters from touching. He is waiting for her. Letting her choose.

After several long, still seconds Rey presses her palm, her fingertips, her wrist, against his. Kylo draws in a breath as their future flashes before his eyes, a tide of warmth sweeping over them both. In the same moment he sees Rey before him and Rey in the future, both of them radiant and strong. He exhales a held breath and it’s like the force is filling them both with timeless energy. They are like the sand beneath the sea, being molded and directed into arching dunes.

Kylo turns her face up to his and leans in. Her breath ghosts against his skin as their lips meet, her frame small in his arms as he pulls her flush with his body. 

Rolling her on top of him, Kylo positions Rey’s legs on either side of his hips and feels her gasp at the contact, her lips bitten red and a flush in her skin. He grabs her ass, shows her how to ground her body into his. He arches his hips up and lets her feel the weight of him between her legs. When she visibly shudders against him Kylo wonders if Rey is a virgin. 

It’s not redemption, and it’s not atonement, but it’s what he has to give.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be aware that the rating has changed again, this time to M.
> 
> You can find me at [lunaplath](http://lunaplath.tumblr.com). If you want emails when this story is updated hit the "subscribe" button at the top of this page. 
> 
> Your comments and kudos encourage me to write more, so if you like reading this story please leave feedback!!! I love hearing your questions and ideas.

The first time is unplanned. Rey knows that she can’t stay with Kylo Ren forever, that eventually living in the belly of the First Order will become too much to bear and she will inevitably break whatever fragile intimacy is forming between them. And yet.

None of those things stop her when she is alone with him. With shaking hands, Rey pulls at the neck of his tunic, like there’s a secret underneath his clothes and she must learn what it is. Kylo meets her eyes, his breath as heavy as her own, his posture perfectly still and his eyes piercing in their intensity as she unfastens his belt and pushes the heavy fabric away from his shoulders. His body is warm beneath the tips of her fingers. Shivering, she traces the line of his shoulders, her chest flush with his, her body attuned and hypersensitive. 

Rey inhales at the sight of him, at the healed fissure that cuts across his chest, along his neck, over his cheek, and curves toward his brow. Despite the horrible scar she carved into him, Kylo’s body is warm and breathing right in front of her, firm as he leans in and kisses her. He is stubbornly alive and she is grateful. The loud beating of his heart against her ear excites her and makes her want to dig her nails into his back when he pulls her close.

Kylo is meant to be reviewing reports. Out of the corner of her eye, Rey sees the words _PROJECT STORM EATER_ at the top of a First Order document, but she can’t think about plotting and sabotage when his hand is palming her breast through the thin fabric of her tunic. She arches her back like one of the fierce desert cats that used to sun themselves on top of her AT-AT, biting her lower lip when he pushes the fabric aside and pinches her nipple. She must be the worst recruit to ever join the resistance, Rey decides. She has gained the trust and affections of the Supreme Leader of the galaxy, but she has not stolen a single piece of information, destroyed any dangerous weapons, or converted anyone to her cause. 

Rey has spent much of her time like this, with Kylo’s hands on her body and regret clawing at the back of her throat. _You were captured_ , she reminds herself, hungrily pressing her tongue into his mouth. _He offered you this life and you said no._

Her shame does little to temper her actions, because having his mouth on hers is like feeling the force respond to her commands for the first time. She’s only now comprehended that she, Rey of Jakku, nobody and daughter or nobodies, is important. Even if it’s just to a man like Kylo Ren.

Rey knows what it’s like for her body to be worth fewer portions than the parts she could haul across the desert on her back, so when Kylo licks his way between her legs it feels something like being worshiped, like she’s a god and he’s a fallible, desperate mortal. When she reaches into his pants and roughly grips him in her hand, his needy whimper surges through her like a shot of whiskey. She sees the setting sun of her home world in her mind, remembers the ceaseless aching in her limbs from years of hard labor, and her memories make her power over Kylo all the sweeter. 

She had only planned to kiss him and crush their bodies together through her training clothes, but there has always been a hole inside her heart, in the place where friendship and affection and kindness are supposed to be, and when Kylo rips her leggings past her hips she kicks her legs free of them anyway.

She had only planned to grind herself to completion, to let him make a mess of himself without really having her, but Rey is weak. She wants to feel this man who has captivated her attention; she wants to feel good. When his body bluntly works its way inside of her, she feels a little less empty, in a way that makes her ache and shudder underneath him.

He pulls her legs over his shoulders and Rey can’t think after that, she can’t feel anything besides the unexpected fullness of his cock inside her and the obscuring pleasure of her muscles clenching around him. She’s only ever done this to herself, she never trusted any of the other scavengers enough to let them touch her, and the size of him is painful, shocking, and impossibly arousing at the same time. Kylo roughly presses her into the mattress and they’re both moaning, both whimpering and shaking in a way that she has never experienced, even when she used to rub herself to completion alone in her hammock. When she comes, Rey forgets about the resistance and her broken lightsaber and the murders she’s witnessed by his hand. She only feels blinding, all-consuming pleasure. 

Collapsed on his bed, they pant and stare at each other, wide-eyed, both of them still dazed and unbelieving. Kylo grasps her chin in his hand, his thumb brushing her lower lip. She thinks she might love him, in that moment. 

The moment does not last long. He doesn’t hold her and drift off to sleep in her arms, like the romances in the holos she’s seen. He’s the Supreme Leader and there is little time for her built into his day. After a few moments he rises from the bed and pulls on his clothes, returning to his work, to his domination of the galaxy. Rey watches him, wistfully, as he returns his attention to the data-pads stacked on his desk. Feeling chilled, she wraps the covers around herself like she’s seeking shelter from her own choices.

Kylo may not be a good man, but she wants him, still. 

*

After the first time, it’s no longer an accident. She knows what she’s doing and who she’s doing it with. Rey knows that the knowledge should stop her, but over and over again, it doesn’t. 

She likes riding his cock in the mornings before his meetings and seeing his breathless, star-struck expression. She likes twisting his balls in her hand while she sucks him off and makes him come too soon. She likes seeing him on his knees, her fingers pulling at his long hair, while he goes down on her.

After a lifetime of isolation and anonymity, Rey likes controlling the leader of the galaxy. She likes the intimacy. She likes the way the force blooms and radiates around them while they fuck.

But not all of her time is occupied by Kylo Ren. Rey spends most of her hours in training gear, practicing the lightsaber forms that Kylo practically jumped to teach her. Like a wild energy that can be harnessed with care, she trains her body to be as lethal and precise as the beam of her weapon. 

One day, when she is covered in sweat and breathless from her exercises, her solitary training is interrupted when a panel falls from the ceiling and two figures crash into the training floor.

Rey nearly skewers them out of instinct before she realizes that one of the figures is Finn.

“Rey,” he pants, pushing himself off the floor. “We’ve come to get you out. We’re rescuing you!”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get ready for plot and angst.
> 
> You can find me at [lunaplath](http://lunaplath.tumblr.com) on Tumblr. If you like this fic, hit "subscribe" at the top of this page to receive emails whenever a chapter is added.
> 
> I want to thank everybody so, so much for all the comments and kudos! I love receiving your feedback. It means so much to know that I'm not just writing this story and sending it out into the void, that someone is reading this and getting enjoyment out of it. <3

As a child, Kylo was completely uninterested in politics. He hated going to the Senate building where his mother worked and watching the men and women make speeches in their fine cloaks. It had been difficult for him to block out the thoughts of so many people and to ignore the aggressively disparaging comments that politicians kept to themselves—about his princess mother without a planet, about his smuggler father, about his strange uncle and the supposed new Jedi Order. 

But the exposure had taught him several valuable lessons: not everyone said what they were thinking. Not everyone shared all the information they knew. Not everyone had a plan for all possibilities, but some people had a plan for everything, even if they wouldn’t admit it to themselves.

Standing in front of an assembly of the officers of the First Order, Kylo is grateful for his experiences, as unwelcome as they had been at the time. Each general and admiral and regional governor wears the face of clean military discipline, but he knows that each one of them has something to hide.

“Order is our only way forward. To most of you, that means little more than systematic destruction.”

He pauses, making eye contact with his audience, including a few specific members of high command. 

“But the galaxy has seen the result of using fear alone as a governing strategy. We can not repeat the mistakes of the Empire.” 

He picks up a glass of water in his gloved hand. The clear glass hovers over his open palm before audibly shattering into tiny slivers, with glittering droplets of water suspended in the air.

“Force has its place,” Kylo explains, letting the explosion of glass and water droplets gradually expand into a crystalline cloud. “But without order, without discipline and control, there is only chaos.”

He snaps his hand closed and the shattered glass re-forms around the water. An intact vessel remains.

“This means that, as we conquer new territory, the imposition of laws, courts, and security must be a military priority. If we do otherwise, then this entire structure will collapse from the inside.”

To Kylo’s surprise, a few of the regional governors began to clap in earnest. Soon, the junior officers and a few members of high command loudly join in before standing as a show of respect. Eventually Hux and his closer companions clap along politely. 

Nodding to one of the generals, Kylo allows his strategy to be outlined in more detail by a bull—faced subordinate. He remains for the entirety of the meeting despite already knowing every word that will be delivered in the presentation, using the opportunity to scan the members of the room. Judging by the thoughts that skitter around the room, more than a few of them are convinced that he murdered Snoke, but the majority never met the former Supreme Leader and are impressed at the degree of access he is providing. They see his involvement as the type of proactive energy that the First Order needs if it is going to conquer the entire galaxy.

Once the general speeches are completed the different ranks of officers break away—some for further meetings, others for more pressing offensives. The room gradually clears of any lower-level personnel. 

The rest of the proceedings involve only the high command, which includes the most senior generals and advisors. Battle plans are discussed, along with trade embargos, sieges of entire sectors, and less humane reconditioning options for ‘troopers that have been subject to courts martial. 

Towards the end of the meeting, as Kylo is fielding questions from General Skam, Hux fills the following silence with a question of his own.

“What has happened to the missing, presumably escaped, Jedi Rey?”

Kylo looks at Hux with palpable focus. The rest of high command remains motionless in their seats, like they’re listening for the moment when the pin is pulled out of the grenade. 

“The Jedi Rey was released to provide valuable information to the First Order.”

“The same Jedi who killed Snoke—is now sharing information. Supreme Leader, if I may ask, what information?”

“She has provided the location of the Resistance.” 

Low, excited whispers break out among several members of command. This news is unheard-of among Hux’ colleagues. His face impassive, the general realizes the extent of his miscalculation. He had meant to undermine Kylo in front of the First Order leadership, to carve out any confidence Kylo might have garnered based on his performance over the past several weeks.

“Excuse me, but how did you persuade her to turn against the Resistance?” 

“Perhaps you are unaware, General, but the dark side of the force is inherently persuasive to her kind. It is their greatest weakness.”

Kylo rises from his seat, dismissing the commanders and advisors with a look.

As they are filing out, he says cooly, “Thank you, General Hux. Without your inquisitive mind the rest of command would be unaware of one of the First Order’s greatest tactical accomplishment.” 

*

Dressed in only her form-fitting under-layers, Rey lets herself in the empty mechanical room. It’s hot inside, much hotter than the rest of the base, because the tech that the resistance electrical grid is based off of is outdated and prone to overheating. After spending her entire life on a desert planet she finds the extreme heat relaxing, and chooses to do her morning exercises in the hottest space she can find on base.

This early in the morning Rey does not expect to disturb anyone’s work detail, so when she hears the durasteel door open some minutes later she starts and turns around.

Instead of an engineer or electrical tech, she sees Finn outlined in the doorframe. 

Rey drops her pose and smiles at the surprise.

“I saw you head in here and thought I’d say hi—I didn’t realize you were busy,” he explains, his body turning as if to leave.

“No, wait,” Rey says, taking a few steps forward in her bare feet. “I come in here to exercise sometimes because I miss the hot air. At this time of day, I don’t get in anyone’s way. You can stay and practice with me, if you want,” she offers, silently hoping he’ll accept.

Finn smiles easily and shuts the door behind him. “Sure. Why not.”

The moment reminds her of when Finn found her on Kylo’s ship. She’d been training alone then, too, in a similarly sweltering room.

He stands beside her facing the electrical conduits and exposed power lines, shrugging off his battered jacket until he’s down to an undershirt as well.

“Shoes too?”

Rey nods. “It helps with balance.”

Finn obediently kicks off his boots and sheds his socks.

“First we stretch,” she says.

The two of them work through a series of warm-up stretches, along with balancing postures, spine strengthening positions, and eventually defensive maneuvers. There are a few broken-off broom handles that Rey uses to drill lightsaber forms. She hands one to Finn and teaches him how to position his hands, how to arrange his feet, how to place an attack and defend one.

Before she realizes how much time has passed, Rey decides they should take a water break, only to look at the grubby clock by the door and note that two hours have already elapsed. 

“Why don’t we cool off for now,” she suggests.

Finn looks as exhausted as she feels. Rey only has one water canteen so they grab their bundles of extra clothing and stagger into the temperate corridor. Her muscles feeling like the unstable frame of a rusted-out star destroyer, the two of them find a water dispensary where Finn can fill up his standard-issue canteen. He leads her to the cooled storage area for droids that have been powered down for more serious repairs, and the two of them sink down onto the empty work-bench. 

“Those books teach you how to do that?” Finn asks, holding the sweating exterior of his canteen to his forehead.

“Something like that.”

He takes a long pull of water.

“Uh huh. Where’d you really learn those exercises?”

She suddenly feels clammy, like the sheen of sweat on her skin has cooled and gooseflesh has emerged in its place.

“Kylo Ren taught me. While I was with him.” Her shoulders hunched in on herself, Rey says, “I think Luke used to do something similar, but he was much more secretive with his knowledge.”

Finn places his hand over her own. Until now, Rey has not realized that her hands are curled into tight fists. 

She doesn’t deserve him. Her brave, kind, understanding friend.

It’s been two months since Finn and Rose Tico gracelessly fell out of an air shaft into her training room on Kylo’s star destroyer. Two months since Rey scampered down the black halls of the officer levels and helped her friends smuggle a Silencer prototype from the bowels of the First Order.

She still tears up when she thinks about it.

Finn resolutely squeezes her hand. “If you want to talk about what happened to you while you were on that ship, I’m here. I’m your friend, Rey.”

He looks down, as if he can’t meet her eye. “Poe told me about what happened when he…when he was interrogated by Kylo Ren. They tortured him,” Finn grits out.

He glances at her warily, as if to gauge her reaction.

Rey swallows down a lump in her throat and straightens her posture. She owes her friend the truth after so many weeks of silence.

“No one interrogated me for information. I wasn’t tortured. I wasn’t even imprisoned.”

Finn’s brow creases in concern, but she doesn’t stop talking. Rey has heard so many people commend her bravery and fortitude—they’re calling her a hero and whispering the word _Jedi_ in a reverent tone that would have made Master Skywalker roll his eyes in disdain. 

If one more person thanks her for standing up to the Supreme Leader, like Rey’s a panacea for the resistance, she might explode into a million bitter pieces.

“There was never a lock on the door,” she confesses, rubbing her leaking eyes. “Because he knew he didn’t need one. Kylo Ren and I are the only two people in the galaxy who have this,” Rey sputters, gesturing to the empty air in front of her. “I spent so much of my life a-alone, and now the force has c-connected us.”

Her face crumpling, Rey whimpers, “I never would have been strong enough to leave without your help.”

She can’t make out Finn’s features through her tear-filled gaze, but she knows deep inside that she should not have told him. That nothing she says can convey the mix of relief and devastation she felt when she entered hyperspace in the stolen Silencer. That he will never be able to understand why she does not feel the same simple hatred for the First Order that fills his heart.

Finn wraps his arms around her and rubs her back like he’s calming a wounded creature. Her head on his shoulder, Rey blinks her eyes open through her tears and forces herself to breathe through the unmistakable change in air pressure and warble from the force.

Kylo stands among the lifeless, powered-down droids, his face carefully blank as he watches her cry into Finn’s arms.


	5. Chapter 5

As one of many scavengers on Jakku, Rey learned quickly that the scrap that offered the greatest reward was located in the most dangerous wrecks, littered with the withered remains of other scavengers who failed, and died, trying to retrieve it.

Certain wrecks were deemed too hazardous to even attempt excavating. Bait, the locals called them. The sites that scavengers turned to in their most desperate hour, when they were weak enough with hunger to take their chances. Somehow, Rey always found herself returning to the same deceptive crashes, like a lean dog that smelled food but feared taking the first bite. 

Rey asked the more experienced scavengers if they had ever attempted to pry open these risky work-sites, only to be asked how long she’d been standing in the sun, if her brains and her common sense had been cooked out of her by the heat. Their laughter had been brief, a huff of air at her stupidity as Rey chewed on the unsatisfactory answer.

At night, when she had already gobbled up her portion and tried to fill her empty belly with water, Rey began planning her dive into the most dangerous wrecks. Maybe they weren’t really bait, she thought. Maybe she would be different from all the other scavengers who had fallen to their deaths in the bowels of Imperial wreckage. 

The first time she picked through the remains of a formerly off-limits ship, she’d felt a swell of fear and excitement unlike anything she had ever experienced. As she aimed the beam of her headlamp into the impenetrable darkness, Rey urged herself onward, thinking _go down, go down, go down,_ while her heart rattled in her throat. 

After the first time, Rey hadn’t been able to stop. She tried to limit how often she slipped inside the mot notorious death traps, but the portions she earned from those hauls always tasted richer. The same synthetic protein made her salivate with triumph. 

Standing in the shuttered droid repair workshop, Rey gets the same urge along her spine when she sees Kylo watching her, the same frenzied rising in her blood. _Reach out_ , it says, compelling her forward, _take what you want._

For all the turmoil building inside her, Kylo’s face is closed off, as if he’s bored with her indecision. He’d looked the same way when she had been crying into Finn’s shoulder, like he would gladly be rid of her when the force connection between them fizzled out. The thought sends a shudder of anxiety through her, made more potent by the gradual lessoning of his figure in front of her, like he is dissolving and leaving her presence. 

“No,” Rey says, darting forward. She takes his hand and feels the connection roar back to life, like they’re really face-to-face, like a holo-signal that is being transmitted with perfect clarity after a bout of static and interference.

If possible, Kylo looks even more annoyed, like she has dragged him here against his will.

She grasps the front of his shirt with her hand, desperate to keep her dangerous wreck from disappearing.

There’s treasure inside, and she’s hungry. 

Closing her eyes for a moment, Rey whispers, “Please. I made a mistake.”

Both hands are fisted in his clothes now. She can’t let go.

“Before—on Crait—you told me I could ask for one thing. Kylo, I want to come back,” she chokes out. “Take me back.”

His expression opens up to her like a flower unfolding, a delicate, living thing between her palms.

Kylo leans in close to her while his breath fans over her skin, like he wants to brand her into his memory before swallowing her whole. 

“ _Yes_ , anything.”

His mouth finds hers clumsily, his teeth tugging on her lower lip while he traps her hips in between his groin and the metal work table. Rey shudders against his lips as he yanks her tunic and breast band open, his gloved hands pinching her nipples. 

His touch is harsh, roughly pulling down her leggings, working his gloved fingers inside her with little build up. Despite this, Rey grows embarrassingly wet and her body makes an audible squelching sound. Kylo turns her frame so she is bent over the icy metal table, the cold surface making her skin prickle and her nipples harden. Hearing the clink of his belt, she feels a rustle of fabric before he’s parting her legs and sliding in her from behind, roughly stroking that spot inside her that she can’t reach with her own fingers.

Earlier, Kylo’s touches had been perfunctory, stroking her just enough to ease his way inside. Now there’s a delicious friction between them and she can’t contain her whimper when he bears down on her harshly. 

His hand snakes around her front and grasps her neck, his gloved fingers applying pressure on the sides of her throat, making her light-headed and weak. The sound of their bodies moving is like an echo, wobbly and fluid. 

His mouth pressed to her ear, he says, “Do you know how much you made me suffer?”

Kylo’s voice is surprisingly even, cool as the table he’s bent her over.

Nipping at the sensitive skin along her neck, he continues, “Are you sorry for what you did?”

Her hands are scrambling for purchase on the smooth metal and her body feels so full of him she might break. The hand at her throat is steady and vise-like. When Rey does not respond he thrusts into her with painful force.

“Answer me.”

“Y-yes,” she whispers, trying to work her hips against him. He punishes her with another thrust that practically stings.

Tears leak from her eyes. The floor feels so far away but her skin is flushed and hot and buzzing. “I’m s-sorry. I’m sorry for leaving you. Please, Kylo. I don’t want to be apart anymore.”

He eases up and starts steadily rocking into her at a pace that makes her moan and shiver underneath his hands. The rush of blood makes her dizzy with euphoria. Rey tries to reach her hand between her legs but he slams it down on the table before rubbing her clit with his gloved fingers, circling and applying pressure in just the way she likes.

Rey feels it low in her belly when her body begins to contract around him, her heart beating frantically, an electric rush of heat between her legs, building and building until the intense pleasure of it is all she can comprehend. After several breaths she notices Kylo swearing quietly, his face pressed into her hair as his movements become forceful and erratic inside her.

Shivering, she can feel his body emptying into her, his muscles tensing while he comes. When Kylo pulls out she feels his come start to drip from her sex and she feels achy, sore in a way that’s satisfying.

Rey turns around and meets his eyes. He is a sunrise, bright and undiluted. Kylo touches her face, his gloved thumb grazing her lower lip. Rey darts her tongue out and tastes herself on the leather, tangy and sharp.

“I’ll come get you,” he says, the faint stubble on his jaw scratching her oversensitive skin.

Gently, she shakes her head. “I need to leave on my own. If you give me your coordinates, I’ll find you.”

She plays with the ends of his hair, marveling at how soft the strands are to the touch. He’s silent for a few moments, unspeaking while she lightly massages his scalp with her fingers.

“Trust me,” Rey urges.

Kylo leans his forehead against her own, showing her what ship he’s on, the location of his fleet in space.

When he pulls away he appears lighter somehow, as if he has shed a heavy burden simply by opening up to her. Rey is reminded of the first time Kylo took off the helmet and revealed himself as a man instead of a monster. 

Their connection in the force flickers out and Rey is left naked and cold in the droid repair workshop. Her body throbs in places and her clothes have been ripped open, but she feels whole, energized and satisfied in a way that makes her grin stupidly at the busted D2 units.

She places her hand on the dome of a powered-down droid and remembers all of the friends she has made in the resistance, remembers Rose, Finn, Poe, BB8, and General Organa. 

_Goodbye_ , Rey thinks, closing her eyes. _I’m going where I belong_.

**Fin**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading and commenting on this story! I will continue to write for reylo but this fic is now complete. Expect an update on [Ultra Vires](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6887977), my longer reylo WIP, in the near future. 
> 
> If you want to see what I'm up to or just talk about reylo, you can find me on Tumblr at [lunaplath](http://lunaplath.tumblr.com).


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